


casualties in love, war, and the mazurka.

by withersake



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Catfishing: the Fanfic, Crack Relationships, M/M, Megatron is Suffering in the Background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22789774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withersake/pseuds/withersake
Summary: This is either the best date ever, the worst date ever, or the greatest example on why he should never take up Drift’s offer to ‘experience enlightenment’ with him ever again.( Or Rodimus accidentally catfishes the DJD and this is going exactly where you think its going. )
Relationships: Rodimus/Tarn
Comments: 27
Kudos: 151





	casualties in love, war, and the mazurka.

**Author's Note:**

> **Pairings:** Rodimus/Tarn. Rodimus/Drift, Amica Endura.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Minor sexual references. Utter silliness.
> 
>  **General Notes:** Heavily inspired by a comic created by steelsuit on Tumblr. This piece is also based on a prompt I wrote on my now-deleted Tumblr account during a writing meme. It has has been edited to further polish it and to expand on some scenes and thoughts I didn’t have time to add.
> 
>  **Current Notes:** I wish I can explain this but I cannot. No reasoning. Only feeling.

**MR.ELOQUENT69 HAS SENT YOU (1) NEW MESSAGE, HOTPRIME420!**

**Mr.Eloquent69** sent on 20:32 PM

My darling **HotPrime420** ,

I wanted to let you know that, yes, I have received your video files. Not only that but I am very appreciative of the little show you provided in the file HOTSHOWFINVER3.vid. It has kept me warm on many cold cycles when I only had myself for company.

If I’m not being too forward, it would be an honour to speak with you soon so, perhaps, we can discuss meeting in person as we’ve spoken about in the past. Please take your time in replying as my friends and I are busy with a big project at the moment.

Sincerely,  
**Mr.Eloquent69.**

———————————————————————————

**HOTPRIME420 HAS SENT A CHAT INVITE TO MR.ELOQUENT69!**

**HotPrime420  
** heeeeey ;”  
*:)  
**;)

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** Good evening, sweetspark.  
Are you well? ****

**HotPrime420  
** my day is always better when i get a message from you  
i am swooning in romance rn  
(and i’m glad you liked my video show ;) rawr. )  
you know wwhat could be better tho?  
swooning in romance irl  
while i’m swooning in your romantic rl arms  
in real life

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** So I take it that you are not opposed to the idea of us meeting in public?

**HotPrime420  
** opposed?  
i’m EXCITED!  
been waiting for a chance to shower your dumb faceplates  
with kisses and snuggles

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** Charming as always, my saucy little sunlight.  
Where would you like for us to meet?

**HotPrime420  
** oh man you need to visit me!  
my habsuite has a berth big enough for the two of us  
;))))))

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** I certainly don’t mind.  
Though this raises the question of your location…

**HotPrime420  
** oh yeah  
i never told you?

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** No. I’m afraid the chance has never come up.  
We were busy with other things, after all.

**HotPrime420  
** lol we sure were  
🔩💦  
but yeah  
i’m on a starship! my friend bought it for me.  
he’s awesome! :D  
so we don’t have a set-set location  
cause we’retraveling and stuff  
buuuuuut  
i can give you the coordinates for our next portstop  
hang on i’ll send it to you

**HotPrime420** **has sent COORIDNATES.comm**

**Mr.Eloquent69  
**I must admit: This friend sounds almost too good to be true.  
How generous of your friend to buy you your very own starship.

**HotPrime420  
** haha are you jealous?

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** A little bit, I must confess.  
Will they be open to the idea of me being on the ship?

**HotPrime420  
** don’t worry! we’re better off as amicas  
he’s got it hot for a doctor friend of ours right now  
or is it his scientist buddy when they were in the same group?  
or or is he still hung up on his old boss??  
idk  
its hard to tell with his love life

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** Long as I have no competitors when it comes to your fair servo.

**HotPrime420  
** siiiigh you’re so romantic  
i need you here asap

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** I’m looking at your coordinates and hmm…

**HotPrime420  
** hmm?  
is that a good hmm? or a bad hmm?

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** A good ‘hmm’, I can assure you.  
Your next location does line up perfectly with the project my friends and I have at the moment.

**HotPrime420  
** project?  
oooorrrrr  
you’re secretly seeing someone on the side???  
my poor spark at the thought oh noooo.

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** I would never do that to you, darling.  
It’s a very big project.  
We were supposed to go to Clemency but we’re taking a detour to that sector.  
To meet an old friend of ours, nothing more.

**HotPrime420  
** aw that sounds sweet  
tell your friend i said hi! :D

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** I will, my saucy little sunlight, I will.

**HotPrime420  
** ngl i feel like i’m forgetting something about this date of ours  
but oh well  
thats a problem for future me

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** So it _is_ a date, sweetspark?

**HotPrime420  
** it’s totally a date!!!!  
i g2g but yeah! a date is a date is a date so see your next week!  
i’ll be waiting at the ramp of the transwarp portal, baby.

**Mr.Eloquent69  
** Until we meet in person, my lovely sunburst. I will try to satisfy myself with these gorgeous clips until we’re finally together.

**HotPrime420  
** looooove you.  💖🔥

**Mr.Eloquent69**   
💖 💖 💖

———————————————————————————

Fast forward to the day Mr.Eloquent69 is supposed to meet him at the ship’s space bridge and—

“I can’t believe you agreed to a date with a stranger, Roddy! A stranger from the intranet, no less. I thought we’ve talked about this!”

… Oh yeah.

Now Rodimus remembers what he forgot to consider:

Drift and Drift’s Feelings on Stranger Dates.

Well— The others not being too keen on him handing out their coordinates to a stranger could be considered a problem, too, but _psh_. Details. He can talk to them to his side later.

Right now? He’s got a Drift to placate.

“He isn’t a stranger,” he begins, doing his best to leverage the few inches he has on Drift by standing straight as possible. Maaaybe fanning out his spoiler halves to give himself more mass and, thus, more I’m Totally Right ground. “He’s nice and charming and funny _and_ he compares me to the thrilling flare of a dying super nova from a Class-A galaxy system. That’s super romantic!” He thinks.

“The dying nova of a— Hm. Rather overwrought in its construction,” Megatron comments, butting into the conversation and probably thinking his dry tone is oh so witty and smart. Ugh. “I’m surprised this mystery mech of yours thinks you’ll be the audience for this sort of compliment.”

“At least he has an audience.” Rodimus crosses his arms over his chassis, making it a point that his spoilers flick in a snootish manner while he talks. “How are those poetry nights at _Visage_ doing?” Petty, he knows, but _Primus_. Seeing Megatron’s dumb frown collapse into a dumber scowl is so worth it.

Drift tries to steer the conversation back on course, his concerned-slash-exasperated expression not changing one bit. “Do you know anything else bout this mech you’re seeing on this FindaRide.con site? His job? His faction? His designation?” A pause, and then Drift repeats himself in horror, “Tell me you have his designation, Roddy, please.”

Rodimus is so (so!) proud of himself for keeping a straight face here. “He goes by Mr.Eloquent69.”

Meanwhile, Ratchet, who’s been struggling to decide whether he wants to cry or laugh over these turn of events, breaks even. Out of the corner of his optic, Rodimus sees Ratchet double over, his frame shaking as he tries in vain to hide a bubble of laughter with a series of fake coughs. It fools no one.

Drift looks like he’s going to kidnap Rodimus and hide him in his (Drift’s) habsuite like the last time they got into an argument about his dating. Rodimus readies to shuffle back, maybe throw Hound at him to gain some distance if a chase happens, but something takes their attention away.

A loud and piercing blare fills the room, almost drowned out by the lockdown gates shuttering the doors that lead out of the space bride. Rodimus’ vision is filled with the deepest shade of red as the emergency lights switch on at Danger Level, Defcode 5.

“A breach?” Leave it to Perceptor to be the only unflappable one as everyone else clamps their servos over audials. “There should be no other ship around us.”

The transwarp portal flares to life at that exact moment, like it wanted to spite Percy’s assumptions.

And out steps the DJD.

_The DJD._

A battle occurs before anyone speaks, anyone _thinks_. Mechs launch themselves at other mechs. Guns are fired off. Limbs are ripped off. Bots fight for their very lives as the DJD remind the trapped  crew members  why they were considered _the_ most dangerous Decepticons amongst Megatron’s ranks. (Megatron, by the way, better be regretting right now! This is all his fault in a ridiculously long and roundabout way!)

Rodimus manages to punch down the crazed Turbofox that Kaon tried to sic on him, bodily throwing the furious mechanimal at a surprised Ultra Magnus. His SIC can handle the small fry. He has his optics on a more important challenge.

“Tarn!” He pushes through the crowd, ducking and weaving through the shots and blows and occasional flying torn limb. It takes him longer than he’d like to admit to get to the creep but, by Primus, he’s going to give him a piece of his mind! “You’ve got five seconds to get the hell off of my ship before I kick you off! I have a _date going down_ and I am _not_ letting you ruin it, you creeps!”

Everyone from both the DJD and the Lost Light crew stills at Rodimus’ words. Somewhere, from where he was looking for his torn-off legs, Megatron is groaning into his servos.

But the DJD, to the shock of the Lost Light crew, back off(?) when a flustered(??) Tarn raises his servo up in the air. Helex stops trying to shove a struggling Perceptor into his stomach, allowing Drift to finally yank the poor guy out of the still-whirring guts. Teasurus sighs and drops an offended Brawl to the floor, crossing all of his arms in what seems to be disappointment.

“A date?” Tarn wheezes and man— That knock to his helm earlier must have been a fierce one, considering Helex was aiming for Megatron at the time. Did he just imagine Tarn giving out a wheeze? “You’re expecting a date?”

“Yeah!” Rodimus marches up to Tarn, pushing aside the struggling ball that is Rewind and Vos and maybe Tailgate so he can jab an offended finger on the big dumb ‘Con’s chassis, “I have a date and I’m not letting you ruin it! I haven't met the guy in person, yeah, but he’s funny and hot and awesome and totally willing to explain to me why the slag the Tarnian Alternate is superior to the Polyhex Meter!” He still doesn’t get it — and he doesn’t think he ever will, frankly — but he appreciates Mr.Eloquent69’s enthusiasm for the subject all the same! It’s cute!

…

Huh.

Why is everyone so quiet all of a sudden?

Tarn tosses Blaster to the side, straightening out his mask and resetting his vocoder over and over again like there’s a patch of static stuck in his pipes or something. “I— I fear there may have been a mistake in identities then.” More silence follows — long enough that Rodimus is ready to punch the guy like he had been planning to — when the question is _finally_ spat out: “Are you HotPrime420?”

“… Yeaaaaaah… Why?” How did he even know?

“Because I’m, ah, Mr.Eloquent69.”

No.

No way.

_No fragging way._

“Mr.Eloquent69?!” Rodimus pulls back, a wash of horror dumped over his helm. Like the time Whirl accidentally doused him with gasoline during his attempt to perform a fire trick during the monthly Lost Light talent show.

The horror is soon taken over by indignation and rage, however, with Rodimus making it super duper clear with the sharp, sharp pokes to Tarn’s big dumb chunky chassis.

“I can’t believe you! You just tried to kill my Amica! My crew!” He pauses, remembering what Swerve had informed him happened during the slaughterhouse arc (whatever the slag that bit meant in Swerveism): “You _did_ kill my Amica and my crew! Oh Primus— I can’t believe I still have your poetry tabbed as important! I can’t believe I doodled my name in a spark with your username! The date’s **_off_** , Mr.Eloquent69! Get out of here!”

“Darling, wait! This is a terrible misunderstanding!” Tarn reaches out for him and Rodimus is not having any of that. He’s already pushing through the crowd and he might be pouting, juuuust a little bit, as Tarn tries to plead his case, “My saucy little sunlight! Please! Stay! I can explain— Kaon! Kaon — you get your pet to stop trying to chew off that Enforcer’s face off right now! I don’t want you to make a bad impression on my little minx of a bot.”

“ ** _T A R N._** ” A minibot — boxy and blue and looking ready to beat anyone and every one up to a pulp at that moment — pushes their way through the rest of the DJD and the chaos. Rodimus never thought he felt true fear until he saw their optics glare down at his direction. “I **_TOLD YOU_** to not sext with strangers, you **_F O O L_** —“

(Distantly, in the background, Rodimus could hear Drift yell, ‘I **_told you_** to not speak with strangers on the interanet!’ before Ratchet tackles him out of sight.)

———————————————————————————

Did you know that the unread message counter in a HUD inbox can only count up to 10000? After that, it slaps on a plus sign since it couldn’t be bothered at that point?

Yeah— Neither did Rodimus! You learn something new every day after you accidentally catfish the DJD.

The last message he was able to receive before it filled to capacity was from Kup: Baffled and angry and demanding answers from his mess of a ward. Rodimus wonders if he should inform Kup of this dubious honour but decides against it. It’ll only encourage his former mentor that he _is_ receiving these messages.

The ominous red ‘ **+10000** ’ slapped on his inbox continues to blink in his HUD as Rodimus wonders how his choices got him into this latest mess.

Then Rodimus felt something brush against his ankle and it took him a second too long to realise it was Tarn’s pede brushing up against his leg and oh Primus.

Primus. Primus _please_ — He’s a good speedster. He only pulled a few pranks on Megatron this week. He finished half the datawork quota without being nagged by Magnus too much. Why is this happening to him? What did he do to deserve this??

“So? Do you like our performance?”

“It’s... interesting. Never something I experienced before.” Rodimus is going to have to thank Rang for teaching him how to be more diplomatic when it comes to his real thoughts. It’s coming super useful at this moment. Thanks, Rong. “Your friends are really giving it all they’ve got. Lots of… impassioned singing.”

Tarn beams or, well, beams much as he can behind that mask of his. “We are diligent when it comes to practice. It's how we always came out as part of the top three in the annual Decepticons talent show.”

_The Decepticons had a talent show???_ Rodimus feels his processors struggle to accept that information.

This is either the best date ever, the worst date ever, or the greatest example on why he should never take up Drift’s offer to ‘experience enlightenment’ with him ever again.

As Helex and Tesarus do a dramatic reading of Megatron’s Towards Peace, the rest of the patrons in Swerve’s bar are looking at anyone or anything that isn’t their captain and His ‘Mr.Eloquent69’. They try to carry on as usual, all the while carrying resigned expressions on their faces.

Because only this sort of nonsense could happen on the Lost Light; only Rodimus could accidentally catfish the leader of the DJD into a date and somehow charm the homicidal maniac into continuing the date with him as promised.

“So… How’s your week?” Rodimus takes a healthy gulp of Tarnian Violet — of course Tarn would bring a bottle of Tarnian Violet, of _course_ he would — in hopes of getting drunk enough to past out. Or throw up. Whichever comes first. “You said in our last messages that you were on a project?”

“Project?” Tarn’s optics fitz in and out, the equivalency of a blink. “Oh. Yes! The project. We found out the location of Long Tooth, a filthy turncoat of the Cause, and we were on our way to cross him off our List.” Tarn pauses for a long time and Rodimus isn’t sure if its’ dramatic effect, or if he’s trying to remember if they really did kill Long Tooth since they, like, have done so much murdering that it’s hard to keep track of you who tortured to death. Either is a possibility. “We were very effective, I assure you. Would you like to see my personal recordings of it? I haven’t finished the editing for it but I like to think it's our most thorough execution yet.”

“Umm… Maybe later,” Rodimus flashes his most winning smile, and tries to keep his spark from shrivelling up when Tarn brushes his pede against his shin again.

This is the last time he goes on FindaRide.con. He should have listened to Drift’s advice and listed himself on the Circle of Light’s dating app or something.

Speaking of Drift:

Tarn sighs, “Now, darling, I’d hate to ruin the romantic atmosphere—” Is that a joke? Is that Tarn being serious?? Which option does Rodimus really want??? “But I have to ask: Will he be watching me like that for the entirety of the entire date?” Tarn tries to be polite and only vaguely gestures towards Drift’s direction.

Or, rather, the part of Drift he can see. From where he’s peering over the Rodimius’ side of the table, only the top of his helm and his blazing blue optics could be observed.

“Yeah,” Rodimus confirms, trying not to sound _too_ relieved, “He wants to make sure we don’t end up fragging.” He doesn’t bother with being subtle for his part and Rodimus blatantly points at the minibot who Tarn has identified as ‘Nickel’ earlier. He feels like he can since she is, quite literally, sitting on the table, her own blazing blue optics darting back and forth between him and Tarn, Tarn and him. “Is that her mission too?”

All Tarn can say is a sullen, “Yup.” and Rodimus— Rodimus doesn’t know what’s funnier: The implication that Tarn(!) still wanted to frag him or the fact he heard Tarn(!!) say something ineloquent as, ‘Yup.’

Wordlessly, Drift and Nickel reach out from across the table to shake servos. They’ve made a pact.

Rodimus sighs and knocks back another swig of his drink, telling himself at least _a_ relationship is happening tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> /heelys into the sweet night, refusing to explain anything about this


End file.
